


if these walls could talk

by iPhone



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, F/F, Fluff, No conclusions and no endings, Romance, They’re both human, forgive them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 14:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20779916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iPhone/pseuds/iPhone
Summary: The trials and tribulations of living in the same house after a break-up. Set between PP1/PP2 – AU, est. relationship, kind of.





	if these walls could talk

**Author's Note:**

> The mildest of angst. Warning for drunk!Beca shenanigans. Drink responsibly! Or don't drink at all! Honestly, save your livers.
> 
> This idea kind of came to me in multiple parts: one third in a dream, one third in my half-dazed/half-asleep state while watching Someone Great for the nth time, and one third my own personal experiences with taking care of drunken friends.

Chloe kind of just wants to sleep.

She has a lot on her mind and sleep sounds like the perfect reset.

With sleep in mind, she really isn’t expecting the lump under her covers when she carefully navigates her way to her bed, bleary-eyed from studying for hours at the library. The librarians finally kicked her out at around 12:05 a.m. and Chloe spent the next half-an-hour at the twenty-four-hour student centre staring blankly at her half-finished essay.

She finally decided to cut her losses and head back to the house. The fact that she had been studying at the library solely to _ avoid _ coming home (read: one Beca Mitchell) only serves to make her more exhausted and worsen her mood.

So, she is extremely displeased to find a Beca-shaped lump right under her covers and in her favourite spot on her bed too. Displeased mostly because it throws a wrench in her plans to spend another dreamless night _ alone. _ It also doesn’t help that she’s wearing an old hoodie stolen from Beca’s closet, so she had been feeling extra nostalgic all evening.

Scowling, Chloe uses a hand to lightly shove what she assumes is Beca’s shoulder before she leans over her bedside table to flip on the light.

She can make out Beca’s unruly, messy hair, and a black t-shirt, but otherwise, Beca is pretty tangled up in her comforter and Chloe has no real idea where her girlfriend’s – _ ex- _girlfriend’s – face is.

(Though really, had they been “dating” at all? Or was it just a fling to Beca? The questions that kept – and continue to keep – Chloe up at night, honestly.)

Beca makes a quiet grunting noise when Chloe starts to pull at her blanket. When her face finally surfaces (in a totally not adorable way), her brow furrows as she takes in the light from behind her closed eyelids. Chloe notes the very slight flush on Beca’s cheeks and on her neck from what she can see.

"Are you drunk?” Chloe asks incredulously. “Do you want to explain what you're doing here?”

Chloe’s voice seems to trigger Beca into a state of semi-consciousness. “Hi,” she murmurs, tilting her head up in Chloe’s general direction, but not opening her eyes. “I’m asleep.”

“I’m _ trying _to sleep and you’re kind of stopping me from doing that,” Chloe explains patiently, unable to stop the affection from creeping into her tone. She could never stay mad at Beca, not even when Beca had been a prickly freshman, hell-bent on making the Bellas wonderful despite her own attempts to come off as aloof and uncaring. She sits at the edge of her bed and only barely resists from reaching out to comb her fingers through Beca’s hair.

(It had been something Beca enjoyed immensely. The way her eyes would flutter closed, long eyelashes pressing against pale cheeks – and the slow upturn of her lips. Chloe loved eliciting those smiles from Beca, in whatever way she could.)

Beca shifts and appears to attempt to prop herself up on her forearms, though makes no other move to leave Chloe’s bed. Beca’s eyes flutter open for a moment when she tilts her head in Chloe’s direction and Chloe catches a glimpse of the bright-eyed gaze Beca directs at her. Chloe sighs heavily and glances at her phone. It's nearly one in the morning.

She opens her mouth to say as much, but Beca beats her to the punch, almost literally. She reaches out to poke Chloe’s nose, but misjudges her strength and aim, thus jabbing Chloe in the chin roughly.

Chloe gasps and jerks her head back. “Hey!”

Beca smiles innocently and moves her hand to curl around Chloe’s thigh. "You're pretty."

Chloe hates that she_ still _ blushes whenever Beca compliments her. Just a little bit. "You’re _ drunk _," she mutters, but her lips twitch of their own accord. She wills herself not to smile.

Beca tsks and rolls over so she’s lying on her back. Chloe gives up on trying to get Beca out of her bed, so she focuses on making sure that Beca isn’t doing something horrible like wearing shoes. "But,” Beca says, lifting a finger up. “In the morning, I won't be drunk." Beca pauses, like she is thinking _hard_. "But—but, you'll still be pretty. You’re lucky you’re so pretty."

Chloe frowns upon inspection that Beca is wearing only one sock and no pants at all, but thankfully no shoes. She carefully removes Beca’s socks and tucks Beca’s feet back under the blanket.

Once that is done, Chloe fiddles with the hem of her sweater, nervous in the silence.

Beca simply watches her.

It’s too much, almost. Having Beca's eyes on her like she's the only thing that matters in Beca's life. She wants to bask in it, but equally, she wants to run away.

Chloe stands from the bed and runs her fingers through her hair. "Why are you here, Bec?" she asks softly, trying to keep her emotions at bay.

"I live here,” Beca says slowly, like Chloe is asking dumb questions.

“Why are you in my room?”

“Where else would I be?"

Beca attempts to sit up again, this time more successfully. Chloe reaches out to steady her immediately when she somehow appears to sway, even though she is sitting. “You’re so drunk,” Chloe mutters. “Who let you get this way?” Shaking her head, Chloe refocuses. “You should be in your own room,” she mumbles, gently pulling at Beca’s hands. “I’ll help you, baby.” She quickly clears her throat. “You big baby,” she corrects, hoping against hope that Beca somehow missed that. “Where’s Amy when you need her?” she asks rhetorically.

“I escaped her,” Beca replies helpfully. Then, a little slurred, "I love you."

Chloe stifles a smile. "Okay."

She _ should _ be happy that Beca’s here at all, but thinking about how they had broken up – rather, ended their _ arrangement _– because Beca couldn’t bring herself to commit to Chloe on any level…hearing Beca say that just makes the oddest kind of hurt ripple through Chloe.

Beca leans forward and Chloe belatedly recognizes that Beca is attempting to kiss her. She manages to turn her head in time so Beca’s lips graze her cheek. “Beca, hey—what are you doing?" she asks, swallowing at the hurt that flashes across Beca’s face.

“Kissing you,” Beca replies, steadying herself by holding on to Chloe’s shoulders. “Please?” she tries, in a voice so small and filled with emotion that Chloe can’t bring herself to read into at the moment.

To cave would be so easy – _ too _easy. And they could go back to sleeping with each other regularly, being a couple behind closed doors, arguing about who was flirting with who—

Chloe closes her eyes. Beca is drunk, Chloe is tired, and they both need to have this conversation another day.

"We're not…” Chloe gestures between them. “We’re not…anything anymore, Beca." She helps Beca out of bed slowly, careful not to spook Beca lest she leap back into Chloe’s bed.

But Beca looks genuinely confused. "We're not?"

"God, how much have you had to drink? Why were you drinking?"

"…Amy,” is Beca’s sheepish explanation.

“Oh, of course.”

Beca attempts to make her way back to the bed. “Hey,” Chloe calls, reaching out to grab Beca’s hand. She gently pulls Beca back and towards her door. “I can get Amy up here to bring you back to bed.”

Beca looks at Chloe’s bed pointedly.

“This is like talking to a puppy,” Chloe mutters.

"I don't want to go."

Chloe sighs heavily as Beca's hands boldly come up to hold her waist. It was so rare to see Beca display affection publicly, but Chloe had become so accustomed to having Beca literally find _ reasons _to touch her. Beca had briefly explained it months ago – that she couldn’t resist when it came to Chloe. Not anymore at least. It was a sentiment Chloe related to all too well, but she figures one of them needs some sense of propriety.

(And historically, Chloe’s the one with a limited sense of self-control.)

If Chloe’s being a little selfish, she has missed Beca so much. The past two weeks were hell – not being able to kiss Beca or talk to Beca like she had grown accustomed to. It had been doubly difficult to not really be able to talk to anybody about this considering most of the Bellas were oblivious to what was happening behind closed doors (at Beca’s request), though the looks Amy gave Chloe sometimes were too knowing to be entirely innocent.

Finally, she decides to sit Beca down on her bed while she picks up Beca’s discarded jeans and folds them. She rifles through her drawers for a pair of sweatpants or PJ pants so Beca doesn’t end up too cold when she inevitably kicks off all the covers. When Chloe turns back around, Beca is watching her intently, with her lower lip trapped between her teeth.

“Oh no,” Chloe says immediately. “Don’t you start.” She tosses her flannel pants at Beca’s face gently. “Put these on. Do you want coffee or water or something to start sobering up?”

Beca sends her another cute smile before putting on her pants with some struggle. Chloe bites her lip to stop from laughing aloud and offend Beca’s delicate, drunken sensibilities. Then, she pats Chloe’s bed, gesturing for Chloe to sit next to her.

“No.”

Beca pats the bed more aggressively.

“Do you want coffee?” Chloe asks, pointedly ignoring Beca.

"I don't want coffee, I want you." Beca frowns. “Just. Come here, please?”

Chloe closes her eyes. Beca is drunk, she reminds herself. And Chloe is so tired. So they both need to have this conversation another day.

Chloe closes her eyes and against her better judgement moves to sit next to Beca. "We can't do this." It is half-hearted, however, because she's pretty much done fighting her attraction to Beca Mitchell (she gave up a long time ago in all honesty).

Beca’s brow furrows. “Do what? I’m not doing anything.” She pauses. “Hey, Chlo. Want to know a secret?” She leans in closer, angling her body towards Chloe’s.

Chloe is distracted momentarily by the warmth of Beca’s body so close to hers and the whiff of her perfume. Beca, for somebody who was indulging in alcohol and likely at a loud and messy house party, smells clean and well—

She smells like _Beca_. But not in the most obvious sense. To Chloe, it is all the comfort of being close to Beca and how it all envelopes Chloe like a warm blanket. It makes Chloe’s heart pound.

_Her _Beca.

"I have a secret,” Beca repeats, her breath washing over Chloe’s ear. “Do you want to know what it is?"

“Okay,” Chloe whispers, intrigued against her own will. Beca’s hand is creeping onto her thigh, searching out her own hand. Chloe lets her find it. "What's your secret?" Chloe asks, genuinely intrigued despite how exhausted she is. She wants nothing more than to curl up next to Beca and wrap her arms around her to just forget the world for one more night, but every rational brain cell desperately fires reasons as to why she _ can’t _ and they’re being exceptionally loud tonight of all nights.

(And maybe Chloe has secrets of her own. Regrets, mostly. Like being more open and up front with Beca about what she wanted. Like not being patient enough or harboring unnecessary resentment when they both contributed to the problem.

And of course, the biggest secret of all: being in love with Beca who honestly has no idea — Beca, who would have no idea even if it dropped in front of her in broad daylight.

So many secrets, so little time.)

For a moment, when Chloe turns her head slightly to look at Beca questioningly, she thinks Beca might kiss her again. Or attempt to at least. Chloe’s last bit of resolve, despite her brain working overtime, seems to have reached its limit and she’s not sure if she wants to stop Beca this time. Being close to her again – being able to see the clarity and emotion in Beca’s eyes, this is what she wanted desperately for the past few months.

Beca doesn’t kiss her. Instead, she heaves a sigh and lifts her free hand to cup Chloe’s cheek in an intimate, delicate gesture. Chloe instinctively sinks into Beca’s touch, eyes welling up at the sheer emotion that courses through her at the simple touch of Beca’s skin against her own. It is a part of knowing Beca well enough – knowing that often words evade her, so she makes up for it in spades with physical acts of intimacy and, well–

Love, if they were both being honest with each other. That had kind of been the problem.

Beca’s earlier “I love you” still stands at the forefront of Chloe’s mind.

"I miss you," Beca murmurs.

Chloe shuts her eyes, but still can’t find it in her to pull away. "Beca, don't."

Beca places a kiss at the corner of Chloe's mouth. "I miss you."

If Chloe closes her eyes, she can imagine that it's just another night and Beca is running a teasing hand up her side while her lips trail a blazing path across whatever available skin she finds. In all honesty, she'd be lying if she said anything else, so she settles on the truth: "I miss you too."

Beca's breath hitches, like maybe she's about to say something else. Her lips are just a breath away from Chloe's.

Then–

“Seriously?” Beca asks, pulling back when they both jolt at the sound of light tapping against Chloe’s bedroom door. Chloe immediately attempts to disentangle herself from Beca.

"Don't go," Beca says seriously. "It might be Amy."

“Well, I’m sure she’s here to claim my bed as well.” Chloe shakes off Beca’s hand. “It could also be one of the girls. What if they need something?”

Beca grumbles in response, but lets Chloe go.

Chloe slowly opens her door, blinking against the harsher hallway light. It’s Amy. "Hi—?"

Ever one to abide by social decorum, Amy brushes past her into her room. "I was looking for her," she explains, pointing to Beca who is staring up at the ceiling. “I can _ see _you. How did you escape me? You explicitly told me ‘Don’t let me go to Chloe’s room tonight, Ames’. I hope you’re not expecting your twenty bucks back.”

Chloe opens her mouth, but no coherent question forms.

“Chloe said I could stay,” Beca says quickly. She folds her arms, staring at Amy challengingly. If Chloe weren't so confused and alarmed, she'd focus a little more on how cute Beca looks. Amy, on the other hand, looks like she’s two steps away from hoisting Beca over her shoulder.

Obviously, Beca, in defiance, makes herself comfortable on Chloe’s bed once more, scooting up so she is resting against the pillows.

Amy turns to face Chloe with a questioning expression. Chloe flushes under the attention and unspoken question. Multiple questions. “Why is she drunk?” she demands instead, fixing Amy with a pointed stare.

"Oh. Scary captain. Okay.” Amy holds her hands up in peace. “I did not force her to drink. I simply invited her out to take her mind off things like any good best friend would do. I left her alone for like two seconds and she made her way back here. It was a bitch to find an Uber this late.”

Chloe’s protective hackles are still up. "Why did you leave her alone at all? You know how she gets when she drinks.”

“She found her way back to you, didn’t she?”

Chloe blushes for no discernible reason. “Amy…”

"I'm not her babysitter. She's been a mess since you broke up."

Chloe bristles and tries not to let the surprise show on her face. “Hard to, uh, break-up when you were never together,” Chloe says bitterly before she can stop herself. She momentarily forgets that Beca is still in the room. “We weren't..." she trails off at Amy's expression. Beca is noticeably silent.

"Don’t make me laugh. I mean," she gestures with her hands a little lewdly. "Whether you just...stopped hooking up, stopped sleeping together—you two are so obvious. Anybody with eyes and um, dare I say, functioning ears, would have been able to figure it out. We all have a running bet in a completely separate group chat which you two aren’t a part of.”

“What?”

Amy freezes. "Nothing. It's late. I've just come to collect Count McBoozy over there and we’ll be out of your hair.” Amy walks over to Beca. "Hey,” she says loudly.

Chloe winces.

"No,” is Beca’s muffled, sleepy response.

"Get up!”

“Get off me!”

At this rate, they’re going to wake up the whole house and Chloe's honestly surprised they haven't yet. Beca wasn't exactly whispering earlier. Chloe quickly puts a hand on Amy’s shoulder. Beca immediately grins, albeit tiredly, when Amy turns to face Chloe questioningly.

"I think we can both agree she's not going to willingly go anywhere. Not right now at least. Trust me, I tried. She’s persistent.”

"She’s like half my height. I can pick her up.”

"She can stay here."

"Are you sure, cap?"

Chloe turns to see Beca blearily trying to keep her eyes open in an attempt to follow Chloe and Amy’s whispered conversation. “She’s probably going to pass out any minute now," she explains, turning back to Amy after another moment of affectionately watching Beca’s futile attempts to stay awake.

Amy looks unconcerned. “If you say so.” She opens the door before sending a sly smile at Beca. "Short stack’s in love with you and you're in love with her." Amy’s grin only grows. "But maybe you guys can keep it down when you inevitably have all the make-up sex.”

Chloe shoves Amy out the door.

Chloe shakes her head and closes the door behind Amy before walking back to Beca’s prone form on her bed. She wonders if Beca heard Amy’s parting comment.

"Beca?"

Beca is finally silent. Her breathing is deep and heavy.

Chloe snorts.

Chloe grabs her PJs and makes her way to her ensuite bathroom. She scrubs at her face, finally feeling some tension leave her shoulders. For a few moments, she listens to the dripping faucet and counts each drop. Then, when she feels ready, she finally takes off Beca’s old sweater, her leggings, and pulls on her sleepwear wearily.

But, _honestly._

Like, if she’s being totally honest with herself? All things considered, she supposes it isn’t a totally terrible night.

When she re-enters her bedroom, she sees that Beca is curled around her pillow. She gently pries it from Beca’s grasp and rearranges it so she’ll have a place to put her head for the night. Beca snores in response. Carefully, Chloe makes sure to not jostle Beca too much while she slides into bed next to her best friend/sometimes-lover/maybe-ex/maybe-not and shuts her eyes, willing sleep to come.

Beca’s hand comes up to hold her around the middle. The rest of the tension leaves and Chloe relaxes.

She'll talk to Beca in the morning.

First—sleep.


End file.
